Run (A Bucky Barnes Recovery Story)

89 Russian

The assignment came in code, by telephone, and Bucky and Steve let Natasha work it out. While she worked, bending over the kitchen counter in pajamas with a pen and the back of a scrap of paper, Bucky began quietly naming memories.

“You remember when you had that asthma attack once?”

“Very specific, Buck.”

“No, no, the one at the school and you freaked the teacher out.”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“Okay,” Bucky said, because for some reason, that was all he really wanted to hear. Yeah, I remember that. Then, a couple of minutes later, “Do you remember the way your house’s roof was two different colors, it had some sort of dark brown, and then a grey, remember that?”

“I remember that,” Steve said and Bucky nodded to himself.

“Remember, um, that time you tried to fight the guys at that one dance we went to, and there was that one guy with the stupid hat that we made fun of all the way home?”

“Yup, remember that, too,” Steve replied. Bucky almost worried that he was annoying Steve, but it was so comforting to hear this confirmation, to be able to share these memories with someone, that while he cared, he wasn’t sure if he could stop himself.

“Do you remember when you got all that fanmail during the war, all those sweet little kids with those page-long letters?” Steve nodded, looked down, nodded again, and then wearily replied.

“Yeah,” he said and at that moment, Bucky wanted to say, “Am I annoying you?” But he felt like another question after his long torrent wouldn’t have been tactful, so he instead lapsed into silence and sifted through his memories by himself.

Then, it occurred to him one question that he could ask.

“You okay?” He said quietly, nudging Steve’s arm and attempting to offer a smile and Steve looked over and smiled back, but in that reserved way he had sometimes, the way that Bucky had begun to recognise as a lie.

“I just didn’t sleep well last night,” he said and by the way he hesitated before saying it, Bucky could tell it was the truth.

“That’s all?” Bucky pressed, just in case, and Steve nodded.

“Had, uh, a few nightmares, so I just stayed up after that and wasted time,” he admitted. Bucky remembered his walks through early-morning DC at the very beginning, when he still felt everything a danger and being a human being was a fresh experience. He’d been avoiding sleep then, and running from the night terrors, and trying not to think too hard. He understood staying up and wasting time.

“You should have come over and woken me up. We could put on the television or something, it’s in color and everything,” he said.

“Thanks, but I don’t wanna wake you,” Steve replied. “It’s fine.” Bucky didn’t want to pressure him, so he let it go, but not before saying, “If it’s ever not fine, I’d prefer you to wake me up.” Steve just nodded and Bucky looked back down to where he’d taken to studying his left, which was different in the fact that it was significantly more covered now, and much, much more water-proof. He was trying to see if, by sheer force of willpower, he could make his fingers move as quickly and as gracefully as his right did, although he knew it was more than a matter of concentration, but then Natalia sighed and stood up, holding her paper aloft and grinning.

“Well boys,” she said. “We have our assignment from SHIELD. Steve, you’d better brush up on your Russian.” As much as Bucky told himself logically that he’d wanted this and he still wanted this, his stomach did a flip and he could feel himself protest inside. It’s a country, not a prison, he tried to remind himself. And Hydra’s a sinking ship already, it just needs a good kick is all.